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If it feels like certain high-profile YouTubers get way more lenience when it comes to content moderation than everyone else does, that's apparently because they really do, according to a new report.

The Washington Post spoke with almost a dozen former and current YouTube content moderators, who told the paper that the gargantuan video platform "made exceptions" for popular creators who push content boundaries.

“Our responsibility was never to the creators or to the users," one former moderator told the Post. "It was to the advertisers.”

The employees told the Post in interviews that YouTube's internal guidelines for how to rate videos are confusing and hard to follow. Workers are also "typically given unrealistic quotas by the outsourcing companies of reviewing 120 videos a day," the Post reports, which makes it difficult to scrutinize longer videos without skipping over content that may turn out to be problematic. (A YouTube spokesperson told the Post it does not give moderators quotas.)

The flashpoint

The difference status makes became clear in the first days of 2018, moderators said, when Logan Paul drew criticism for posing with and apparently mocking the body of a dead man in a video. Two weeks passed before Google took any public action and removed Paul from the Google Preferred advertising program.

A few weeks later, Paul Tasered a dead rat in another video, again a violation of YouTube's guidelines against violent and graphic content. That video earned him a two-week suspension from monetizing his content, during which ads were disabled entirely on his videos—a move criticized as both insufficient and inconsistent.

Many employees inside the company were just as unhappy with the situation as outside observers were. The decision not to ban Paul permanently from the platform "felt like a slap in the face,” a moderator told the Post. “You’re told you have specific policies for monetization that are extremely strict. And then Logan Paul broke one of their biggest policies and it became like it never happened.”

YouTube told the Post it does indeed have two sets of content expectations, but the company said that meant higher standards for advertising partners than for the general public. That seems partly due to the fallout of the Paul incidents, which led YouTube to say it would impose stronger vetting on content in its Google Preferred program.

Widespread issues

YouTube's issues with navigating the moderation and monetization of extreme and graphic content are not new. There's a years-long track record of scandals costing the company some kind of ad revenue, and with each new crisis universal standards seem harder for the company to manage.

In 2018, the company banned professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from its platform, following moves from Twitter and Facebook to do the same. Jones was in violation of YouTube's policies against hate speech and harassment, the company said at the time. And it took until June of this year for YouTube to ban videos that promote Nazi ideology and other forms of white supremacist hate speech, again following intense pressure from both inside and outside the company.

The workers on the front lines of content moderation are particularly disempowered to push for change or clarity because they, like their peers at most major platforms, are not Google employees but rather work for third-party outsourcing firms. The toll these jobs take on their workers is nowextremelywelldocumented, both domestically and abroad. One former moderator filed a lawsuit against Facebook in 2018, alleging the work left her with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

One YouTube moderator told the Post that ultimately the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. “The picture we get from YouTube is that the company has to make money," they said. "So what we think should be crossing a line, to them isn’t crossing one.”

It makes more sense to bend the rules for things that make money. Logan Paul's content, abhorrent as it is, gets a lot of ad revenue for Youtube, so it's no surprise that the higher-ups overrode the moderators. The bottom line is more important than actually enforcing platform rules.

This is a modern take on the old: the star can throw a temper tantrum on set, abuse key grip and best boy (the hell do they do anyway??? ), and storm back to their trailer, and the studio or director won't do jack about it.

When YouTube drags it's feet and holds out moderating violent content, hate speech, neo-nazis and open harassment until they start losing advertising revenue and are forced into the barest minimum of action; All we will hear is peal-clutching and cries of "ANTI-CONSERVATIVE BIASSSSSSSSS!!!!"

Meanwhile quality channels like Time Ghost are forced to beg for donations because their content covers World War Two history and is therefore demonetized/delisted by default.

Youtube is always going to lose when they ban (or not) someone even if that person or organization deserves the ban. Here (not US) some right wing polictics are outraged because google banned or demonitized some high profile accounts and scream something about constitution or cenzorship. On the other hand when something really bad appears and youtube doesn't instantly deletes (like these NZ shooting clips) it there is also outrage. To be honest this is just private corporation, so it's imposible to expect flaweless justice and yes it is driven be profits. And free speech laws also don't apply directly too.

It makes more sense to bend the rules for things that make money. Logan Paul's content, abhorrent as it is, gets a lot of ad revenue for Youtube, so it's no surprise that the higher-ups overrode the moderators. The bottom line is more important than actually enforcing platform rules.

Sure, if you're only looking at short-term profits and not the dangers of incurring long-term damage to your reputation that can result in financial costs later on down the line.

Honestly, it's not like this doesn't happen everywhere though. Superstar players get fewer calls against them and more calls against opponents who rough them up. (defender breathes on Tom Brady = 15 yard penalty). High performing employee has HR look the other way when people complain about his harassing behavior. Rich white kid gets off with probation when he rapes a girl, because won't someone think of this poor boy's future!!!

NONE of this is actually okay or acceptable. But sadly, it is how the world works.

That's pretty much my reaction.How do people expect these things to work?

If they moderate too strongly, it's censorship, if they don't it's the wild west.

If they use automated systems, they'll be somewhat consistent, but dumb, easy or better yet challenging to game, or as above "clearly" overreaching, or the opposite, not sufficiently so.

If they use human moderators they won't be consistent, they'll take too long to react, and it's always going to be a shit job, even if they were well paid employees, which they obviously won't.

Maybe YouTube shouldn't exist altogether. Because there's no socially useful business model there that works. But then, why should image sharing platforms, social media, fora like this one? Where to you draw the line in socially useful user generated content?

"typically given unrealistic quotas by the outsourcing companies of reviewing 120 videos a day,"

Out of curiosity, I wonder what the average length of a YouTube video is?

That quota works out to 4 minutes per video, and I know most of the original for YouTube videos I watch are closer to 10 or 15, though stuff like Music Videos would probably land in that category, and I'd imagine you can speed it up a bit with a play speed option.

It makes more sense to bend the rules for things that make money. Logan Paul's content, abhorrent as it is, gets a lot of ad revenue for Youtube, so it's no surprise that the higher-ups overrode the moderators. The bottom line is more important than actually enforcing platform rules.

Sure, if you're only looking at short-term profits and not the dangers of incurring long-term damage to your reputation that can result in financial costs later on down the line.

Or, you know, ethics or social responsibility.

It's a Google-controlled thing, ethics and social responsibility were never part of the equation (after their acquisition of the platform from the original founders). Youtube's already done plenty to piss people off on both sides of the screen (creators and consumers), and it's resulted in virtually nobody leaving Youtube for either Dailymotion or Vimeo or any other video sharing site.

It makes more sense to bend the rules for things that make money. Logan Paul's content, abhorrent as it is, gets a lot of ad revenue for Youtube, so it's no surprise that the higher-ups overrode the moderators. The bottom line is more important than actually enforcing platform rules.

Sure, if you're only looking at short-term profits and not the dangers of incurring long-term damage to your reputation that can result in financial costs later on down the line.

Or, you know, ethics or social responsibility.

It's a Google-controlled thing, ethics and social responsibility were never part of the equation (after their acquisition of the platform from the original founders). Youtube's already done plenty to piss people off on both sides of the screen (creators and consumers), and it's resulted in virtually nobody leaving Youtube for either Dailymotion or Vimeo or any other video sharing site.

It makes more sense to bend the rules for things that make money. Logan Paul's content, abhorrent as it is, gets a lot of ad revenue for Youtube, so it's no surprise that the higher-ups overrode the moderators. The bottom line is more important than actually enforcing platform rules.

Sure, if you're only looking at short-term profits and not the dangers of incurring long-term damage to your reputation that can result in financial costs later on down the line.

Or, you know, ethics or social responsibility.

It's a Google-controlled thing, ethics and social responsibility were never part of the equation (after their acquisition of the platform from the original founders). Youtube's already done plenty to piss people off on both sides of the screen (creators and consumers), and it's resulted in virtually nobody leaving Youtube for either Dailymotion or Vimeo or any other video sharing site.

Because YouTube is the Xerox or Kleenex of the video sharing world.

Still, my point is more that people seem to be surprised that a company that pays its bills on ad revenue isn't putting the kibosh on a channel that regularly makes them a lot of income through ads. Obviously Youtube's got the mindshare to stop people from leaving, but anyone who thinks that Youtube will actually stamp down on profitable miscreants is naive.

I thought that was a creative dodge by YouTube too. "We don't set quotas; we just pay contractors based on the number of videos reviewed. Obviously, reviewing fewer long videos would result in less money from us and the same time/pay to the employee, but definitely not a quota."

Not (of course) to suggest this isn't a common practice. Why would anyone outsource their call center or video reviewer or whatever if they couldn't squeeze money out off it by increasing work done and minimizing costs. Bonus points for being able to claim the poor quality of the work is in no way our fault.

What I wonders, if Google is afraid of becoming responsible/liable for these video.

They are doing some moderation of the content right now but not exactly full force moderation. After all, they have the money to hire an army of moderators. If they really put in full and complete moderation, will they lose their safe harbor status and become liable for content?

Finding people who can stream rants or video game play must be harder than I thought.

People like personalities more than the actual content. Ninja's move from Twitch to Mixxer brought a huge influx of users because people want to see Ninja play Fortnite, even though there are literally tens of thousands of people playing Fortnite on Twitch. There are hundreds/thousands of dumbass wanker video accounts on Youtube, but people want to specifically watch Logan Paul be a dumbass wanker.